


bring a bucket and a mop

by strongandlovestofic



Category: Polygon/McElroy Vlogs & Podcasts RPF
Genre: (not in the fic but discussed), Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Come Eating, Come Inflation, Felching, Fisting, Knotting, Knotting Dildos, M/M, Marathon Sex, Mates, Mating, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Mpreg, Oral Sex, Pregnancy Kink, Scenting, Self-Lubrication, Sex Toys, Size Kink, Smut, Switching, let's gooooooooo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:35:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26686012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strongandlovestofic/pseuds/strongandlovestofic
Summary: "I’d be, uh. Honored. If you asked me to be your heat partner.""Honored.""I was going for, uh. Respectful. Romantic."“Honored.I don’t have a dowry. You won’t be getting the farm. There is no farm. I haven’t got a single cow.”
Relationships: Brian David Gilbert/Patrick Gill
Comments: 13
Kudos: 98





	bring a bucket and a mop

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Trigonometrical](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trigonometrical/gifts).



> i started this fic in october 2019 and look, the fact that i published it a whole month earlier than one year later is a _triumph_
> 
> trigory, may the remainder of 2020 treat you more gently than brian treats pat's ████ here. eyyyyyy

Pat doesn’t recover when Brian smashes Bowser over the edge of the platform.

He doesn’t move Bowser when he respawns, either, and Brian nudges him with his elbow. “You ‘kay?”

Pat’s eyes flutter shut and he breathes in deep, and his hand skitters over Brian’s thigh and – shit, okay, okay, under the waistband of Brian’s sweats and grabs at his dick, starts to jerk him off while the timer continues to run.

Brian bites down on his lip and tries not to buck up into his grip. “S’time?” he asks, and Pat lets out a low whine and turns to him.

==

    They get unlimited vacation so there shouldn’t be anything strange about it – but Brian notices anyway. Notices after a year of regular vacations, of a week off every three months in addition to any normal weekends away. Notices Pat coming back tired. Drained. Actually – actually sallow-cheeked, like some kind of Dickensian waif.

    Simone has her heats, tells everyone that she’s gonna go pass out for four days and eat until she’s nauseous: when they’re two hours into happy hour and she’s had three gin and tonics she says that heat suppressants _suck_ , and it’s easier to just take a week to really get fucked, you know?

    Pat doesn’t say anything.

    Brian notices anyway.

==

Brian hears someone’s controller clatter to the floor. Pat’s fingers are — skittering in Brian’s sweatpants, like he can’t decide if he wants to touch his dick or his thighs or his belly. His eyes are still closed and he’s leaning into Brian, his mouth open like he’s trying to taste how Brian smells, and Brian —

Brian pushes Pat back against the couch and straddles him, takes advantage of his lethargy and bucks into his hand, bucks against Pat’s hips, kisses his open mouth. Pat grabs at his shoulder, moans, and Brian watches his eyes open, watches him stare through Brian like he’s already someplace else.

“You, ha, you still with me, Patrick?”

Pat blinks languidly and then his gaze sharpens, and he breathes out in a rush. Hisses _fuck, Brian_ , and then, _Bedroom before I lose my Goddamn mind._

==

    He makes jokes about having anxiety: you know, ha ha, the millennial condition, _amiright_? But there’s joking and then there’s the actual — his actual life. And how he's sort of worked himself into the shoes of a C-list YouTube celebrity, and the room they managed to swing at the last minute for the live Pokerap is gonna be at capacity when they start letting people in. (They’d announced it so late, he’d been… shit, _had_ he been certain no one would come? He’d known people would come. He just hadn’t wanted to assume…)

    He's not nervous about the performance. He's gonna kill it, he’s got this song memorized backwards and forwards: he’s already performed it for the office. For Laura and Jonah — well, and Jonah helped with the music anyway.

    He’s not nervous. His entire body is sweating like he’s an overstuffed ham but that’s normal when you’re wearing a suit and standing behind a curtain waiting for a show to start.

    “You good?”

    Pat’s there too of course. Brian’s performed this for him most of everyone.

    “I think I’m gonna hide under the table and jump out, uh, before,” he tells Pat, and Pat does that huff of a laugh he does when he likes what Brian’s thinking but still thinks he’s being extra. “Right?”

    “Right,” Pat says, and he’s got that small smile on his face that always seems to hook right behind Brian’s sternum.

    Brian shakes his hands out at his sides and breathes out, loud, and then Pat’s — there. Not in his space, not exactly, but close. Close enough that it’s not anything at all to make the move himself, to press their shoulders together and tilt his head towards Pat’s and breathe in, which is.

    It’s some kind of placebo effect, is all, the calm that sinks under Brian’s skin. Nothing to do with how Pat smells, close and nervous but trying not to be, like he’s trying for Brian. 

==

Brian manages to corral them into the bedroom in that space of Pat’s lucidity and he’s not surprised when he sees everything piled up around the bed — they’d talked through some of the planning, even if a heckton of it had involved Pat shrugging, saying _I’ve got it_ like it was a burden he was used to bearing. There’s a plastic tub shoved between the bedframe and the wall that Pat had described with a grimace as _for, uh, y’know, stuff that should be cleaned_ , and a collection of grocery bags full of bottles of water and snacks.

Pat slumps onto the bed and pushes his shirt up, his hand slowly mussing the hair on his stomach. He’s staring up at the ceiling, and when Brian moves closer it’s obvious his eyes are getting that faraway look again. Brian slides onto his knees in front of him and squeezes his thighs, and Pat spreads his legs like Brian pressed a button.

“Fuck,” Pat whispers before fumbling with the waistband of his sweats, “fuck me,” and Brian’s sure it’s both just a comment and also a request, but it’s early yet and they’ve got... God, what, at least two days ahead of them? So Brian guides Pat’s hips up, helps him yank his sweats down under his ass, and Brian sways a little. Pat’s already wet, he can _smell_ him, and he digs his fingers into Pat’s thighs so he doesn’t. Woof. Do something impulsive. Like flip Pat onto his stomach and just, uh, dig in.

They’ve got days.

==

    “Fuck me,” Pat groans, slumping down in his seat and tipping his head back. It’s only 7 — not particularly late for either of them to still be at work, but Brian’s seen Pat logged into Slack past midnight for the last, like, week, and it’s not hard to guess he’s burning the candle at both ends.

    Brian stands and stretches. “You need coffee?”

    Pat rubs his hands over his face, shoving his glasses askew. “Maybe.” He messes with his hair, too, and breathes out slowly. “I should go home. Eat something.”

    “C’mon then,” Brian says as he puts his laptop to sleep, then slides it into his bag. “Bet if you leave your computer here work’ll still be waiting for you tomorrow.”

    Pat’s laugh is hollow. “What’re you gonna do tonight? Hypocrite.”

    “Shh.” Brian slings his bag over his shoulder. “I’m fresh as a daisy.”

    “And I look like shit,” Pat replies, which — not exactly what Brian was going for, but it’d be awkward to protest when Pat’s moving, packing his own stuff away.

    Brian calls the elevator and Pat leans into him while they wait, their arms pressing together. He’s been… doing this. Brian hasn’t called it out. (He hasn’t initiated it himself, he doesn’t want to assume. He doesn’t know if there’s anything to assume. If Pat’s actually — because he has to know Brian’s...)

    The elevator pings and Pat hums and actually has to sway away from him to move, and Brian. Brian doesn’t assume, but.

    Shit, he wonders.

==

Brian likes Pat’s dick. It’s long and slim, and when Pat gets hard it curves up and drips onto his belly, and when he gets _really_ turned on Brian can rub his thumb over the slick leaking out of his hole, spread it up between his thighs and over his dick, get him off with his own wet.

Brian’s, uh, he’s not gonna do that tonight. Right now. He’s gonna keep his hands — not above the waist, but in front? Topside only. For now. They have time.

He fists Pat’s dick and starts to jerk him off, slow, moves his hand over the length of him until Pat lets out a sigh and melts into the comforter, his body going loose.

“I hate,” Pat says, his voice syrupy thick, “I always feel raw. Like. Shit, _open_.” He lifts his hips like he’s trying to get more comfortable, or like he’s trying to get more sensation — and then he laughs. “You, uh, you gonna do something about that?”

Brian kisses his thigh and breathes out on a laugh. They have time, and Pat has uh, needs. “Are you asking me to fill you up?”

And Pat covers his face and keeps laughing, and Brian kisses the pretty tip of his dick.

==

    Brian always forgets people don’t know he’s an alpha. Like, yeah, there’s the whole stereotypical alpha Chad bullshit description which he very much doesn’t fall under, and no one’s ever looked at him and thought: wow, get a load of that absolute knothead; but he doesn’t keep it a secret. He’s got a stick of deodorant “for alphas” in his desk (he tried Laura’s beta stuff once when they were younger and he smelled like ass, it was — so weird), and during his interview Tara raised her eyebrows at him and held his gaze for a little longer than necessary, honestly, like she was making sure he wouldn’t try to start something. So _she_ figured it out on first meeting. (Tara is the most intimidating person Brian has ever met, alpha or not, and he's so fucking glad she likes him.)

    So when his phone reminds him to book his yearly physical and he groans, announces to everyone that their insurance rolls over in a month and they should get checked out if they haven’t yet, and then mutters about how he needs to find a new andro-alphalogist, _fuck, what a mouthful_ —

    He’s not expecting the owl-eyed look Pat gives him. How he waves off Brian’s offer to grab him coffee from the kitchenette, even though he looks like he’s dragging in the final stretch. The way Pat doesn’t start getting ready to go when Brian does, like he has been the last, gosh, couple weeks.

    Shit, did Pat _not_ know? Pat didn’t know. Does that matter? Only if Pat’s a — and that wouldn’t matter anyway, it’s not like... Simone’s an omega, and Brian’s not panting for her, doesn’t hassle her about her heats, he tries to be a decent fucking person which is just baseline, honestly, and.

    Not that any of that matters. Brian doesn’t deserve Pat’s time or his, his attention. Pat doesn’t owe him that minute of warmth, of slow affection standing next to him before the elevator comes. The brisk walk to the train. The way their eyes sometimes catch before they head to their separate platforms, when Brian always wonders what would happen if he asked Pat to grab something to eat with him. If he asked Pat if he could… take care of him, a little.

==

Pat starts to get wriggly a couple minutes into Brian sucking him off. He’s not rocking into Brian’s mouth, he’s not trying to fuck him — by this point Pat usually asks, or Brian tells him to, tells him to _fuck my mouth, baby_. But Pat’s just _wriggling_ , like he’s got an itch, and Brian hums around his dick questioningly.

"Just, shit," Pat grouses, and he plants a foot on the mattress and pushes his hips up, works a hand under himself, "I need," and his voice twists into a whimper and Brian feels a shudder go through Pat’s thighs, under his palms.

There's a wet noise and then the scent of Pat's slick perfumes the air, and Brian moans. "Do you want," he says, breathing against the tip of Pat's cock, and Pat shakes his head. Brian can see his arm straining, the veins of his forearm standing out as he reaches under his ass. "Do you want me to."

"Just keep, keep, that," Pat replies, and he mutters _fuck_ when Brian sucks him back down.

==

    Pat's out for a week. Brian knows why, he _knows_ , but he also can't assume because he doesn't want to be an asshole.

    (He's being an asshole. He's assuming.)

    Pat comes back on a Wednesday and he looks — kind of bad, actually, worse than he usually does after what Brian isn't assuming are his heats. His eyes are bloodshot and sunken into his cheeks, and Simone does her half-tease, half-scold thing, tells him maybe he should've taken more time off.

    "Wouldn't have made a difference," Pat says, and he looks over his monitor at Brian. Looks at him for a while, actually, like he's debating — "I forgot to pick up heat pheromones. I was a miserable fuck from the get-go."

    Simone mutters something about _having a miserable fuck, wow_ , that makes Pat laugh, aggrieved, but he keeps his gaze on Brian like he wants him to know. Like he's making a choice, saying this. Like Pat's — offering this to him, maybe. Trusting him with it. That yeah, Pat's an omega, and he's making sure Brian's aware.

    He packs up with Brian that evening, stands next to him by the elevator, walks with him to the station. They shoot the shit, talk about work and Zuko's latest bastardry, and Brian feels like a — God, a stereotype when they part ways, watching Pat head down the stairs towards his train.

==

Pat goes rigid when he comes, muscles straining under Brian's palms, and Brian can never swallow all of his come, lets it drip out the sides of his mouth, drip down the sides of Pat's dick — and then Pat whines and his hips jerk.

"It's not — I still feel," he grinds out, the frustration making his voice gravelly, and Brian enjoys the way his cock quivers when he licks the come from his sweat-salt skin, from the head. "My fingers aren't fucking big enough."

Brian breathes in the smell of him, tries not to think of responses to that, _he's_ not the one barreling into a heat, he can keep his wits about him. "Do you want me to grab one of the toys?" He knows they're in the drawer next to the bed. He's seen them when he's dug around for lube, eager to get Pat's dick in him —

And Pat shakes his head, and then his hand, oh, oh God, the hand he's been fingering himself with, that smells like fucking, oh, ambrosia, maybe, is stuttering over Brian's face, up into his hair, too fast for Brian to do something ha, uncouth like grab it, suck the slick off his fingers. "No, no, shit, 'd smell wrong, get your dick out," and Brian huffs a laugh, _romantic_ , and gets his fucking dick out.

==

    They get lunch together. Well, Brian asks Pat if he wants to go somewhere and Pat agrees, and it's only after Pat's done ordering that Brian swoops in and orders too, pays for all of it, leaves Pat staring at him like Brian's grown a third arm.

    It's — stupid, courting behavior. Old-fashioned. No one really takes it seriously anymore: you can share food with a friend without it being an invitation to bone down, but there's still something viscerally satisfying about the way Pat mutters _uh, thanks_ , while his cheeks color.

    "You didn't have to, like," Pat says, and Brian shrugs and passes him his sandwich and does not at all focus on the brief slide of Pat's fingers against his.

    "I wanted to," he replies easily, like he hadn't spent most of last night trying to figure out the smoothest way to play off initiating Goddamn _courting behaviors_ with a hot (smart, funny, handsome) coworker. "Never had that combo before. Is it good?"

    Pat blinks and shakes himself, once, and unwraps his sandwich to take a bite. He doesn't though. He pauses, mouth hovering above the bread, and looks up at Brian. "Yeah." He — wow, he licks his lips, which Brian knows is just a thing he does, but also: wow. "Yeah, it's good. I think it's gonna be good."

==

“Is it always so, uh. Does it always come on so fast?”

Brian smooths a palm over the jut of Pat’s hip. He’s warm to the touch, like his heat is _literal_ , and Pat heaves out a sigh before pushing Brian’s hand out of the way so he can roll onto his stomach.

Which. Okay. Wow, well, his sweats are already shoved down under the curve of his ass, the band stretched over the tops of his thighs. And Pat’s not — well, he’s got what he’s disparagingly referred to as _no ass_ before, which is an unfair assessment to be honest, and concentrating on that is Brian’s way of processing the view of Patrick laid out in front of him without going fucking apeshit.

“No,” Pat grumbles, his head against a pillow. “S’more, with you here. Worse with you, or. Fuck, better, I guess. Can you just — touch me?”

Pat spreads his legs as much as can with his sweats still on and Brian stops a trail of slick inching its way down his inner thigh with a thumb. Raises his thumb to his mouth and — gives in, hell, tastes him.

==

    “Do you wanna get drinks?”

    It’s not unusual to go get a little tipsy on Friday nights with whoever in the office is up for it, but there’s usually a Slack invite — not Pat asking furtively while shoving his laptop into his messenger bag.

    “Sure. White Horse?”

    Pat’s still staring at his bag when he grimaces, and he looks up at Brian with a twisty smile. “If you want. I was thinking someplace less… work?”

    _Oh._ Brian’s hands skitter over his keyboard as he tries to shut everything down. “Really?” _Smooth_. “Uh, sure, I mean. Yeah, where did you have in mind?”

    Pat brushes his hair out of his face and Brian watches the slow drag of his teeth over his lower lip. The hell. "There's this place I keep walking by on my way home. Looks nice, kind of hip.”

    “I’m nice and kind of hip,” Brian says and Pat huffs a laugh, and Brian knows that even if this isn’t what he thinks it is, what he hopes it might be, there’s a good chance he can make Pat laugh again.

==

Pat opens around his fingers easily, already so loose, so _eager_ , and his head’s pressed to the side and he’s huffing great breaths against his pillow while Brian — God, explores him.

“That?” Brian asks, his fingers curling inside, touching smooth heat, and Pat pushes back onto his hand. “There?”

“What do, ha, the fuck d’you think, you asshole,” Pat snipes, and Brian laughs and lays a kiss on the pretty dip above his ass, in the curve of his lower back.

“C’mon,” Pat says, and he shoves his hips back, nearly growls, “ _c’mon_.”

“Any, uh, anything,” Brian says, like that’s not obvious, like he’s not at Pat’s mercy here, like he isn’t feeling the overwhelming combination of _too many options_ and simultaneously, just, at the same time only wanting to do as Pat tells him. “Anything, babe.”

“God, context clues,” Pat bites out, and Brian’s startled into a laugh as Pat twists on his fingers and, voice cracking, orders, “Fuck me.”

==

    They get drinks. They get these mini soft pretzels with mustard. They talk for — a really long time, about work at first and then about Pat’s roommate situation and then it gets late enough, and they get tipsy enough, warm and pink-cheeked, that they talk about, heck, about big picture stuff. About what Pat thought he’d be doing at 32 and how it contradicts reality. About how disappointing Brian is to the general culture of alphahood. About how fucking weird people can be about Pat’s being a divorced omega. About how this will be the first year Brian didn’t go home for the anniversary of his dad’s death.

    They’re standing outside the bar at, gosh, Brian doesn’t actually know the time: it’s late, it’s so late, but he hasn’t looked at his phone in what feels like hours.

    They’re standing outside and Pat kisses him.

    Which — he slides his hand into one of Brian's jacket pockets, a move that is frankly smoother than Brian thought Pat was capable of, and when Brian turns to him, Pat's got this little smile on his face, and then his free hand's on Brian's cheek and he's leaning in, and it's such a brief moment that Brian's left for a second wondering if it happened or if he hallucinated it. Like some kind of waking dream.

    “Hey,” Brian says, like a real dummy, and Pat’s eyes crinkle and his smile goes dimpled and Brian is — the word is twitterpated, he’s pretty sure. (He’s completely sure. His heart would be cartoonishly beating out of his chest if it could.)

    “Have uh, have a good night,” Pat replies, his tongue darting out to drag along his lips before he ducks his head, and Brian jerks out of his stupor and sways forward in time to loop his hand around Pat’s wrist right as he’s turning to leave. To slide his fingers down over Pat’s palm.

    “You wanna hang out this weekend?”

    Pat — he blushes so easily, even when he’s not flustered. It’s distracting, almost makes Brian miss his response: “It’s technically Saturday.”

    “No, I mean. When it’s daylight hours?”

    “Yeah, uh, okay. Brunch, maybe,” Pat says, and it’s only when Brian’s halfway back to his apartment when he thinks about the color of Pat’s cheeks (of his _neck_ ) and the way Pat had implied it was already the weekend, like. Like maybe they could’ve _kept hanging out_ tonight. Like maybe if Brian had asked, Pat would’ve invited him back —

    “Holy shit,” Brian says aloud in the near-empty subway car.

==

They’re not even — heck, they’re not even undressed.

Brian holds his dick, guides himself into Pat and bites down on his lip, slips his hands to Pat’s hips when Pat starts to shake. “Fuck, baby,” he hisses, and he watches Pat twist the comforter in his fingers, his hands on either side of his head.

Brian's thumbs fit perfectly into the impressions above Pat’s hipbones, at his lower back, as though they’re his own imprints — and it’s easier to focus on that than the hot slick feel of Pat around him, always — always good, always fucking perfect but more now, the thick smell of him, the whine he makes when Brian can’t help but jerk forward, just. Just a little. Just enough until his thighs are pressed up against Pat’s, until his dick’s deep enough that. That. “Oh,” he murmurs, and he circles his thumbs against Pat’s skin, drags one set of knuckles slowly up the knobs of his curled spine. “You’re so — beautiful,” he whispers, and Pat huffs and Brian watches his back raise as he breathes in, slow.

“Worship me later,” Pat grouses, and Brian chokes on his laugh when Pat pulls his hips forward and then, God, rocks them back, taking Brian in so easy, _enthusiastic_ : “Fuck me now.”

==

    Brian would give anything for this to not be weird. He’s dated omegas before, but that was, gosh, high school. That was holding hands and trading kisses behind the gymnasium in the ten minutes they got for lunch after fifth period band. There wasn’t weight to it, no expectation of anything beyond maybe hoping Lucie Springer would invite him to Sadie Hawkins. (She didn’t. Brian ended up going bowling with a group of friends because they were _too cool for dances_.)

    And there’s no weight to this either — or there shouldn’t be. Shit, there _isn’t_ , it’s not like Brian slipped Pat a promise ring and asked him to _go steady_. Gave him his letterman. Started walking next to him with their hands slid in each other’s back pockets. (Brian’s thought about mating, finding somebody to spend the rest of his life with, but kissing somebody on the steps of the subway before realizing you should move because you’re blocking traffic isn’t a sure shot towards the rest of your life. That’s — moving a little fast.)

    And it doesn't have to be weird. They're just two guys who happen to be — seeing each other. Kissing sometimes. Hanging out at work and sometimes outside of work, and texting each other more than they used to.

    It’s... kind of nice moving slow like this. Brian falls into love fast, falls into bed faster, loves sex and loves love and loves seeing what somebody’s face looks like when they come. And yeah, he doesn’t know what Pat looks like yet ( _yet_ ) but he knows what Pat looks like when he laughs so hard he cries; and he’s seen Pat drunk and giggly and kinda handsy, tangling his fingers in Brian’s hair and calling him _baby_ as he plants a kiss on Brian’s cheek; and he’s seen Pat tired and worn down and anxious to be alone, and been invited back to his apartment to watch Netflix and be alone with him.

    And then it’s… kind of romantic, maybe? When Brian does get to see Pat’s face when he comes, his dick heavy in Brian’s mouth, his hands pressed over his eyes and his mouth open and pink and panting, after Brian’s told him he’d kind of like to get fucked by his pretty cock, whenever Pat’s up for it.

==

“I did some reading,” Brian grunts between thrusts, slow and deep, his thighs already burning, his dick just starting to thicken — his last partner was a beta, and she couldn’t always take his knot, didn’t always want to, to be fair to her, and it’s. It’s been a while. God. “That usually, ha, usually heats start out slow. There’s a ramp up period.”

“There’s a ram-in period,” Pat grouses, his voice thready, and Brian gasps out a laugh and snaps his hips forward, driving his dick into Pat’s slick, sweet hole just — just to hear Pat’s whine. “Usually, maybe,” Pat manages after a moment, like he got distracted, “You just — smell good. Really, really fucking good.”

“Really _fucking_ good,” Brian says, mostly as a joke, except Pat whines again, bows his back and sticks his ass up like he could somehow make himself more open for Brian, like he took Brian’s words as a compliment, and Brian spreads one of his hands flat between Pat’s shoulderblades and pushes, just, just a little, and Pat goes down easy, pliant, and he shakes under Brian’s palm when Brian says, “ _So_ good, baby boy.”

“ _Brian_.” Pat’s mouth is open, panting, his eyes closed, and Brian waits for the complaint, for Pat to push back — he always does, never thinks he deserves the praise Brian would drown him in if he could, if it didn’t make Pat awkward and cagey — but there’s nothing, just another, shit, some kind of low wail, a sound that hooks under Brian’s ribs and jerks him forward until his knot’s just fucking into Pat, into his, oh —

“Look at, look at you, you’re gonna take it, take me.” Brian thinks he sounds reverent, hopes he does, hopes his hoarse tone conveys — and Pat’s reaching back, clawing at his arm and up his shoulder until his hand catches in Brian’s hair and he just pulls Brian forward until they’re pressed together, chest to back, Brian laid out over him. “ _Pat_.”

“ _Yes_ ,” Pat gasps, and rocks his hips back and takes Brian in deep.

==

    “Toxic fucking alphalogy,” Pat mutters and Brian bites down on his lip so he doesn’t — hell, giggle, and he twists his wrist and spreads his fingers inside himself, shows off for Pat a little, working himself open before he sits on Pat’s cock.

    Pat throws his arm across his face and laughs breathlessly, which usually isn’t the reaction Brian’s looking for when he’s having sex, but is one he’ll take: Pat happy. He’ll always take Pat happy. He’ll take Pat’s dimpled smile and the way his mouth falls open when Brian’s seated in his lap, the way he tips his head back on his pillow, his throat clicking as he swallows.

    “It’s a gosh darn shame.” Brian runs his hands across Pat’s chest, circles a finger in the wisps of chest hair at his sternum before sliding it to his nipple.

    Pat hums a question, and Brian feels the muscles in his hips tighten before he bucks up into Brian, the hum bending into something hot, something hungry.

    “A — shame,” Brian says around a swallow, “that I’m supposed to miss out on what this dick do,” and he fits his thumb into the dip above Pat’s collarbone.

    Pat turns his face into the curve of his elbow. “Toxic —”

    “ _Fucking_ ,” Brian interrupts, and Pat's hands find Brian's hips and he laughs again, and he fucks up into him just — so good.

==

Brian laces their fingers together as his knot tugs against the inner edges of Pat's hole, as he stops trying to thrust and starts rocking instead, each tender roll of his hips drawing out a moan from Pat, until the sound is almost a continuous sigh. Until Pat is pliant, until all of him but the sweet heat around Brian’s dick is loose.

Pat hums when Brian kisses his shoulder, the back of his neck. Tightens around Brian’s dick — an electric shock that arcs across Brian’s skin, _fuck_ — when Brian scrapes his teeth over Pat’s flushed skin instead.

“You come?” Brian asks because he can’t fit a hand under Pat’s body to check, and Pat nods slowly, like he’s only just realizing it himself.

He says, “Feels good,” and curls his fingers around Brian’s, and he presses the side of his face into his pillow and bites down on his bottom lip, and the whine when Brian holds himself still starts deep in his throat. “Full,” he says, and he tugs Brian’s hand up and — oh, uh, _oh_ — licks Brian’s finger into his mouth, closing his lips around it and sucking in time to Brian’s resumed rocks. “Wanna feel full,” he mumbles — with his mouth not near as full as Brian knows it can be, and Brian slides two more fingers between his lips and Pat’s whine sounds like it’s coming from his teeth, high and bright.

“I’ve got you.” Brian presses down on Pat’s tongue. Grinds his hips against Pat’s perfect handfuls of ass. Fucks his knot into Pat’s tight heat. Comes, open-mouthed and gasping against Pat’s shoulder, his arms shaking, his fingers spasming in Pat’s mouth as Pat suckles at them. “Fuck, baby, I’ve got you, I’ve got you.”

==

    “You can say no,” Brian says.

    They’re lying together in Brian’s bed, both of them with their phones out, scrolling through Twitter and showing each other memes that they have a silent understanding to not admit they’ve already seen.

    Their legs are pretzeled together and Brian can feel the sudden tension in every point of contact.

    “But I’d be, uh. Honored. If you asked me to be your heat partner.” Brian clears his throat. His phone screen’s gone black. “If you let me.”

    Pat doesn’t say anything for just, a truly remarkable (worth! remarking!) amount of time, and Brian stares at his blank phone and — frantically tries to decide if unlocking it and going back to Twitter and ignoring he said anything would be better or worse than this moment.

    Brian can hear Pat’s throat click as he swallows.

    “Honored.”

    And thank God, Pat sounds — amused, and when Brian chances a look at him he even looks it, his eyebrows up and his lips quirked, and Brian grimaces and drags a hand down his face because he’s somehow still mortified.

    “I was going for, uh. Respectful. Romantic.”

    “ _Honored._ I don’t have a dowry. You won’t be getting the farm. There is no farm. I haven’t got a single cow.”

    “Oh my God.”

    Pat’s laughing now, his phone sliding out of his hands onto his chest with a quiet _oof_ followed by another laugh. “You out here convincing your hindbrain you’re big and strong? Worthy to capture an omega’s heart? Settle down and breed?”

    “Okay! Hm.” Brian holds up his phone like it’s one of those soccer flags. “Hm! That sure is a thing you just said, _huh_ , Patrick?”

    But Brian has no hope of reorienting their conversation towards whatever kinks Pat’s never disclosed to him, because Pat’s miming texting his mother:

    “Dearest… mom. Uh, beatific tidings. Shit, I have no idea how to spell — gladdest greetings. I have been wooed by an honorable alpha who does not find my lack of farm unappealing —”

    “ _Fuck_ you, oh my _God_.”

==

Brian knows from experience (embarrassing experience, truly mortifying experience: jerking off in his bed in junior year and hurting himself because the sock started cutting off circulation to his dick when he knotted) that it'll be half an hour before his knot goes down, and he tugs Pat as he rolls onto his side, to take the weight off —

Pat’s fingers spider over his neck, his shoulder, down his back, his hand moving awkwardly. “No,” Pat — heck, _beseeches_? — “no, stay, I, stay, I like it,” and Pat so rarely says what he likes without three levels of deflection, so often focuses on Brian that it’s a unique opportunity to indulge him like this, to settle down heavy across his back. To feel more than hear him sigh, when Brian twists his fingers gently in his hair — to feel his rumbling laugh when Brian moans as his dick jerks.

==

    Brian’s tongue is making its way down Pat’s open button-down towards his armpit when Pat shifts. “So,” he says, and Brian pauses and watches his throat bob, “so you want,” and Pat’s expression isn’t exactly _blank_ but it’s auditioning for the role, and Brian sits back and waits him out. Tries not to assume he knows where this conversation’s going, as much as he wants to.

    Pat grimaces when Brian doesn’t complete his sentence. “Uh, so you still want to. Right?”

    “Baby, there’s a lot of stuff I want to do to you.” Brian mostly says it to make Pat laugh (success), but it’s also true. Pat doesn’t say anything else though. Which — Brian can work that to his advantage. Rile Pat up a little, until he spills. “And _with_ you, actually. I ever tell you how much I like getting fucked?”

    Pat barks another laugh and drags a hand across his face. “ _Brian_.”

    “You’ve got truly ludicrous fingers, right, they’re so long, Patrick, I bet if I sucked your dick and you fingered me, you could touch yourself,” and that’s the kind of nonsense shit Brian says sometimes instead of dirty talk but Pat’s eyes darken anyway, and Brian leans in and wraps a hand around Pat’s dick and jerks him off, holds his gaze before then tips his head back, showing off his throat. Pat takes the invitation for what it is, scraping his teeth across Brian’s skin, and Brian’s hand spasms when Pat stops to suck. “I like it, like holding your shoulders when you fuck me.”

    “I’m not gonna want to fuck you during my heat,” Pat says, which, finally, there’s the topic, Brian wasn’t going to _assume_ ; and Brian twists Pat’s open shirt in his free hand and kisses his jaw.

    “I know.” Pat’s stubble is ticklish on his tongue, God, he loves that. “When you’re in heat, baby, I’m gonna fill you.” He drags his thumb in a slow circle around the head of Pat’s dick. “I’m gonna feed you my cock. I’m gonna knot you, gonna fill you up with my come until you, until,” and he lets go of Pat’s dick and flattens his palm on Pat’s stomach, “until you can feel it, until you’re so fucking full of me,” and Pat’s red as a Goddamn fire hydrant and he shoves Brian’s hand back onto the length of his dick and they get him off together.

==

Pat reaches blindly for the drawer alongside the bed when Brian’s knot goes down and he kind of unceremoniously slips out. Brian slumps onto the bed and reaches past him, pulling the drawer open — he knows that’s where Pat keeps the toys when his heat’s going, and Pat’s too prettily fucked out to be embarrassed when he says, “‘M sticky,” and then, “Plug. There’s — it’s red. The smaller one.”

Brian fishes the plug out of the drawer. It goes in — God, easily, Pat come-slick and still open from Brian’s knot, and Pat makes these weak little mews as Brian rocks it against Pat’s rim (ha, the smaller one, he’d said: the thing’s fucking huge), and Pat’s voice is small and warm and vulnerable when he says, “Some of the. Uh. The toys, they have these tubes, and you can mix. Like, the pheromones with uh, fake come, it's so fucking disgusting, thick fucking coconut water, but it's." His shoulders relax as he exhales slowly. As he settles against the pressure of the plug. "Keeping it, ha, inside, it feels…" 

Brian scoots back on the bed, lowers himself to the mattress, and — hovers. Kisses Pat's pretty pink stretched rim to hear Pat gasp, and because fuck, he wants to. He can smell their scents combined, and it’s like electricity in his veins and sinking into a hot bath all at once, and he drops his head further and noses at the base of Pat's dick. "I get it. It's like — it's calming. Like you're carrying part of me."

And Pat gasps, the gentlest of sounds — because his dick is on board with that, Brian can tell even from this angle, and it's the easiest thing in the world to roll Pat over and lick him into his mouth.

==

    Pat’s not a morning person. It’s easy to dismiss his _whole thing_ when he rolls into the office, sunglasses and scowl both fixed on his face, as general irritability — but Brian’s uh. Listen, it’s not like he has a spreadsheet full of data predicting when Pat’s next heat is going to be.

    Anymore.

    (It’s so creepy! Fuck, he’d deleted it as soon as he’d figured out the best formula. It’s _so creepy_ , he’s the worst, but also, he uh. He requested next week off, okay?)

    “Fucking — hormones,” Pat snaps when he’s trying to make the coffee maker function — a tall order on even the best days. “They’re, fuck, you start the regimen two weeks before your cycle starts and if you take it wrong, fuck you, and the list of side effects is _two pages long_ but who the fuck cares, why wouldn’t an omega wanna be pregnant, it’s such a _joyous experience_.”

    Brian is the only other person in the kitchen, so he assumes Pat’s bitching to him. “That sounds really shitty,” he says, because he doesn’t know how to say he honestly had no idea there were side effects to hormone pills. He equally doesn’t know how to say he’d not really thought about prophylactics. (Most of the stuff he’d found online had been borderline pornographic or at least horny as hell, or had just assumed anybody sharing a heat were mates. Assumed kids were in the cards. He’d skimmed most of it that wasn’t _make sure your omega eats and drinks regularly so they don’t die_.)

    And then, because Pat’s scowling at the coffee maker as it sputters to life, his hands slowly clenching and unclenching around the mug Simone got him for Christmas last year — it’s got the lactose intolerance rant from Seinfeld scrawled across the side, and between Pat’s fingers Brian can just make out _no patience_ — Brian says, “I read this article once about how there’s alpha birth control that works but it affects mood, causes bloating, weight gain, stuff like that. It didn’t get approved because alphas complained too much about the side effects.”

    Pat’s laugh sounds like it’s straight from his chest. “Fuck. Alphas suck.”

    “As much as I’m allowed,” Brian replies with an eyebrow waggle, to hear him laugh again.

    Pat finally pours himself coffee and then offers Brian the carafe, and they stand together and breathe in the slightly burnt aroma. “It’s, uh,” Pat says, and he looks at Brian without turning his head. “It’s next week.” His neck’s reddening, above his collar.

    Brian’s surprise is unfeigned; but only because he didn’t expect Pat to just _say_ it. “Oh! Oh, right, okay. So I’ll — stay on my toes. Pack my go-bag.”

    Pat texts him later that night:

    > You'll know

    Brian's in the middle of brushing his teeth, but he manages to type a response:

    > Kn ok what

    Which, sure, with how Pat texts, he’ll probably figure that out.

    Brian nearly fumbles his phone into the toilet when Pat replies:

    > you'll be able to smell it on me

==

Brian moves past Pat in the kitchen to refill his water and Pat’s eyes glaze over, the cracker he’d been eating half-in his mouth, hanging off his lip like a cigarette. Pat grabs onto the counter like his knees have gone weak and the cracker hits the linoleum floor as his mouth drops open. “Oh,” he says, and Brian’s immediately there, steadying him.

“What uh, what do you want me…” Brian fumbles — he thinks Pat’s eaten enough, he made sure Pat drank a whole glass of water before they started in on the jerky and then crackers, but clearly the brief lucidity granted by a good fuck is gone now.

Pat blinks slowly at him before licking his lips. “Fuck me.” He turns, one elbow dropping to the counter top for support as he leans forward, and Brian doesn’t need to be told twice. He works the plug out of Pat — and can’t help being distracted when his come starts to leak out, _fuck_ , and he’s dropping to his knees before he thinks about it, holding Pat by the hips and licking up his mess, his tongue catching the spill on the inside of Pat’s thigh up to the curve of his ass, to his hole —

Until he can stand and fuck into him, slide in so Goddamn easy, the sound just — filthy in the best way, Brian fucking his come back into Pat; and Pat’s hands flit over the countertop searching for purchase, until he gets a hold on the bottom of one of the cabinets and uses it as leverage, pushing back onto Brian’s dick, shoving himself down onto — “Your fat fucking cock,” Pat praises, and Brian distantly realizes this is gonna be awkward as all hell if he knots Pat in the kitchen.

“Baby, baby,” he tries, and Pat nods shakily and whines, and _fuck_ does he feel good, his ass smacking against Brian’s hips, and Brian’s gotta take a minute to shake himself out of the heat haze before he can try again. Can reach up with a hand and give Pat something to focus on — let him suck on his fingers. “Bed, baby, we’ve gotta get back to the bed.”

Pat nods again, Brian’s fingers slipping from his mouth with a bereft moan, and Brian moves them towards the bedroom, kissing his jaw and his cheek, his shoulder — but fuck if it isn’t hard to move when Pat’s shoving his hand down between his asscheeks, driving his fingers into his hole because — “Please, fuck, I need, _Brian_ ,” and then Pat pulls them towards the couch and pushes Brian down. Sits on him, finds his dick and sits on him, spreading his legs wide to make it work, Brian sinking into the cushions beneath him, and Brian’s knot was already starting to pop so he has to fuck past Pat’s tight rim to get in him, to fill him right.

Pat pulls at Brian’s hair, curses, and he bares his neck to Brian, and Brian doesn’t bite him but he scrapes his teeth over the taut line of muscle and Pat whimpers as he comes, and Brian follows him.

==

    “Okay, here’s our options.” Brian’s made a list of heat collars, some of which are actually reasonably priced, and he plonks it on the table between them. Pat hadn’t mentioned anything, and it’s not that Brian thinks Pat was expecting him to _step up_ or whatever — but they’re like T-minus 4 days here.

    Pat stares at him, mouth half-open around his burrito. “For what?”

    Maybe Brian should’ve sent an email. Then he could’ve explained himself without the audience, because he definitely planned a speech for this moment and he has one hundred percent forgotten the entirety of it. “So we don’t bite each other. So, uh.” Cool. Smooth. Fuck, he’s gotta spit it out, _if you’re a big enough alpha to put your dick in an omega, you can say it._ “To prevent accidental mating.”

    Pat blinks slowly at him, as though he hadn’t considered this part of the whole shebang. “Oh. Uh, I mean. We don’t.”

    “Right, we don’t have to decide right now, there’s like —” Not enough time to pussyfoot around it, “a few days, right? Amazon one-day delivery.”

    Pat mutters _yeah_ and awkwardly resumes eating his lunch, and two days later they’re sharing pizza on the couch at Brian’s apartment and Pat nudges his foot. “I don’t think we need them.”

    Brian stops considering why Canadian bacon is called that mid-chew. “Huh?”

    “Collars, uh. I think — I know you wouldn’t, unless I wanted you to.”

    And that’s a very open-ended way to talk about the possibility of mating, and Brian starts, “Wait, would you, Pat, would you want,” and Pat asks him if he wants another beer and makes a beeline for the kitchen.

==

They’re gonna need to deep clean the couch.

They both drifted off, twisted together, which means when Brian’s knot went down neither of them were awake enough to prevent, uh, leakage? And now there’s — shit, there is definitely come seeping into the couch cushions.

Brian’s deeply concerned about staining. Pat’s deeply concerned about the loss.

He’s definitely in the throes of it. When Brian gets back from the kitchen, holding a wet cloth, Pat has one sticky hand in his mouth and the other methodically pushing come back into his hole. It’s — it’s a lot, is the thing, and Brian forces himself not to get distracted; ignores his dick, ignores the _smell_ of it, the glassy-eyed sheen of Pat’s expression as he carefully licks Brian’s come off his fingers, and Brian guides Pat upright and wipes off the couch beneath him. He starts to wipe Pat’s thighs and Pat fucking _kicks_ at him before rolling onto his stomach, kneeling on the hardwood in front of the couch, and Brian’s —

He’s only one man. He _tried_. But Pat smells, God, he smells so good, and Brian can’t — he can’t not scramble down and clean Pat’s skin with his tongue instead, taste the blend of Pat’s slick and his own come, force some of it back into Pat’s twitching hole. “You’re so — fuck, baby, look at you,” he breathes against Pat’s pink skin, and Pat hums and pushes back into his touch.

“You smell good,” Pat whispers, muffled against his arms, the cushions. “You smell so good, you always smell so good, it’s...”

Brian works his fingers against Pat’s prostate and Pat whimpers as his body shakes, as he comes again, and when he’s quieted there’s clarity in his eyes, and Brian helps him to his feet and they make it back to the bedroom.

==

    They should talk. DTR. Define the relationship. Pat’s heat is going to start literally any hour now and they’ve been dating just under three months and yeah, Brian’s known people who got mated faster than that — and he’s read about people who tripped into a heat cycle and everything worked out great, 2.5 kids and a happy life together. (He’s also read the _Ask Prudence_ questions from people who realized that yeah, their partners were great for heats, but kind of sucked otherwise?) So they should definitely talk. Figure out exactly…

    Pat’s so easy around him. Not like that… okay, only sort of like that. He’s relaxed, he lets his guard down. He smiles — really smiles, fuck, his dimples are unreal. He offhandedly mentioned Brian’s plans for the holidays, like that’s something they could be planning for. (Brian _wants_ to plan for that. He wants to — not show Pat off, not in a gross way, not in a _look at my omega_ kind of way, but because Pat deserves to be shown off, to have people think he’s fucking spectacular. Brian wants that. Pat _is_ fucking spectacular.)

    But Brian doesn’t want to fuck up what they have now. He doesn’t know how to even start talking about it. _Hey, I’m about to rail you for three days straight — we’re boyfriends, right? Or like, do you want to spend the rest of your life metaphorically and often kind of physically tied to me?_

    He should say something.

    His phone chimes.

    Pat’s texted him a link to the music video of Europe’s “The Final Countdown”.

==

Brian’s proud of his refractory period. He’s young, he’s an alpha, he’s got a lot of spunk, ba dum tss; and most of all he knows an omega in heat does a bunch of complicated bullshit to an alpha’s hormones to ensure they’re up to the task… But. But also.

Pat’s nosing at his dick, lapping at the head like it’s a push-up pop, and Brian’s not sure it’s gonna happen right now. And Pat needs it to happen. Brian knows the plug — a bigger blue one, the red one’s been abandoned in a big Rubbermaid bin against the wall where everything they’re gonna need to clean after this goes — is gleaming in Pat’s hole, slippery with slick and come after Brian fucked it into him, spinning it slowly until Pat had tears in his eyes, but it’s not gonna satisfy him forever.

Brian brushes hair off of Pat’s forehead and Pat presses into the touch, whispering something low and hot against Brian’s wet dick.

“Didn’t hear you baby.” 

“I want,” Pat murmurs, nuzzling at Brian’s dick, ”you to shove your fat cock in my hole.”

Brian thinks he whites out for a second. “You —”

Pat hums. “It’s, the shape, wide, your fucking soup can dick,” and he laughs huskily, “hits me so good, baby,” and Brian’s dick decides to pull it together for the sake of rewarding Pat’s filthy stupid heat-drunk mouth.

==

    “It’s like you get the 24-hour flu before,” Pat grouses when he opens the door. He’s wearing flannel pants and a long-sleeved shirt. His hair’s a mess, like he just woke up. He hasn’t shaved. He looks incredibly touchable. “Goddamn,” he mutters before he sways towards Brian, who has to drop the bag of snacks he’d picked up at the bodega to catch him.

    Pat tucks his face against Brian’s shoulder and breathes in, loud, deep. Brian can feel the heat emanating off his skin. Brian _can_ smell it on him: it's Pat but more. Like if Pat were neon-scented.

    It takes him a good minute to remember words.

    “I, uh, I brought soup,” Brian says, because he read that clear liquids before a heat help, and Pat huffs and rubs his cheek against Brian's before nodding and letting Brian into his apartment.

==

Brian’s name tumbles from Pat’s mouth in a steady beat, just off rhythm from the rock of their hips. Pat’s scratching long criss-crossing marks down Brian’s chest, his stomach. Brian feels — wild with it, caught up in the way Pat’s let himself go, in the bounce of Pat’s dick when Brian fucks up into him.

“Knot me,” Pat orders, shameless, fuck it’s a good look on him, _fuck_ , everything about him is good right now, “Brian, Brian, _fuck_ , knot me, fill —”

Brian’s hands tighten on Pat’s hips, hold him firm as he jerks up, and he knows he’s rambling but Pat feels, he feels, he’s “Yeah, yeah, baby, I’ll fill you, yeah —”

And Pat grabs at him and rolls, ends up back against the mattress, but fuck, when he does Brian’s dick slides out of him and he _sobs_ , covers his face with his arm and reaches for Brian with the other, he’s barely coherent, Brian’s entire body is on fire. “Fuck,” Pat hisses, “fuck, _fuck_ , fuck me, _fuck me_ ,” and Brian clambers over him and hooks his legs behind his knees, bends them up and he does, he does, his dick already swelling so he has to go slow, has to push his knot against Pat’s hole which — Pat keens, bucks against him, and Brian stares at the stretch of Pat’s hole around his thick knot, both of them covered in the sheen of Pat’s slick, Pat’s hole red and hungry for him, and when he finally slips in Pat’s fingernails dig into his shoulders and Pat throws his head back and he wails as he comes, the whole of him shuddering on Brian’s dick, locked together — and when Brian rocks his hips, pulls at the rim of Pat’s hole, Pat thrashes underneath him, and Brian comes with Pat dragging him down, biting at his mouth in as much of a kiss as he can manage.

==

    Pat walks him through the preparations he’s already put in place: the plastic tub in the bedroom for anything that gets unhygienic, the toy drawer (which Brian’s seen before, but not as uh, well-stocked), the bottle of water, the protein bars.

    In the kitchen, Pat gestures at the cracker boxes and jerky on the counter. “The fridge is pretty full but it’s all like, jello cups and yogurt. I usually eat fine when I’m by myself, but I, uh.” Pat looks pained. “I’m not sure, uh.”

    Brian rescues him. “You don’t know how an alpha being here is gonna affect that.”

    Pat sighs, pushing his hair out of his face. “Hormones really fuck a person up.” He breathes out a sigh, a high-pitched _hoo_. “Anyway, so there’s a non-slip mat in the shower because I don’t want to fucking kill myself —”

==

Brian wakes slowly to the steady scrape of something hot and wet against his neck. Pat’s hair tickles his chin, his mouth covering Brian’s neck in steady kisses, bites, and Brian trails a hand through his — wet? hair.

“Showered,” Pat mutters. “Felt gross.” Which means his heat must be somewhere near to breaking. “Need to, ha, God, smell like you again.”

Brian tugs at his hair and pulls him up for a kiss. It’s slow, more like breathing shared air, and Brian trails his fingers down Pat’s back gently, firm enough it doesn’t tickle. Pat lets out a sweet moan when Brian’s hands make it to his ass, and Brian shudders, his whole body quaking, when he realizes Pat showered with a plug in, so. _Fuck_ , so nothing dripped out.

Pat spreads for him so prettily on the bed: his ass up, still pink from his shower; his legs falling open; his dick hanging between them, eager for Brian’s hand; and Brian fucks into him slow, his dick pushing the spill of come and slick that followed the plug back into Pat’s hole.

Pat stretches under Brian like a cat, like he’s getting massaged, rolling his shoulders and making long, low moans of contentment that round into a grunt when Brian knots him, starts coming. Fills him.

“You take it so good,” Brian whispers against the back of his neck and Pat purrs at the praise, open and aching for it.

“In the, in the shower,” he says, his tone languid, “I kept touching — _ah_. Touching the end of the plug, where it. Thought of you.” He sighs. “Felt like with it in, with all the times you’ve fucked me, my stomach, it’s.” Brian’s knot jerks and Pat moans. “It felt like.”

Brian can’t think. Pat smells like him, like _home_ , and he cradles Brian’s knot so well. "Pat."

"Feel it." Pat gets a knee up and his hand disappears under him and he curses. Brian's hand follows, feels the slight — oh, fuck — curve to Pat's belly, like. Like he were.

"Fuck. _Fuck_ , Pat."

Pat whines and rocks back onto Brian's dick, like he could somehow take his knot deeper. “Full of you,” he gasps, “your fat cock and your, your come, and your baby,” and Brian rears forward and — shit, shit, bites into the meat of Pat’s shoulder, digs his teeth in, and Pat tips his head back like he’s reminding Brian where his neck is, and Brian fucks into him like he could, like he could fill him, like they could —

==

    “I usually start to feel better and then get hit by like, one last wave of fuckery.”

    Brian snorts and turns the microwave on. He’s feeding Pat soup, Goddamnit. “Fuckery?”

    Pat grimaces. “I mean… ugh, yeah. _Fuckery_.”

==

Brian trails his fingers through the hair whorling over the bump of Pat’s belly where — it’s easy, to let himself imagine what it could be. Easy to let himself think about what it is anyway, Pat full of his come, the third and largest plug Pat owns in his ass to keep everything in.

Pat’s breathing slow, steady, and brian’s letting him sleep: it’s hard to say how much sleep he’s gotten in the last… God, three days? Two? Heats are usually shorter with a partner, shorter still if you’re actually trying to get, uh, pregnant, so they’re on the wind down. But Pat had said there’d be one more upswing — and it could’ve been that last go but Pat had been so pliant, so soft…

Brian circles his thumb around Pat’s bellybutton and Pat mumbles _ticklish_ , his hand sliding over Brian’s and pushing it flat. “You like that, huh.”

Brian laughs softly, kissing a patch of skin between their spread fingers. “J’accuse.”

Pat _giggles_ , the warmest, drunkest sound, and Brian’s smiling when he glances up at him. “You’re so fucking into it,” Pat says, eyes closed and the widest stupid grin on his face, relaxed and fucked out and open, “Big bad alpha proud of his virility,” and Brian barks out a laugh and wraps his hand around Pat’s thickening dick, licking up the side of it while Pat goads him.

Brian slides his other hand down to tease the base of the plug, circling his fingers around Pat’s taut, sensitive skin, and when Pat starts to shake he loses his words, _wanna keep me fat and full —_ fading into a long moan, and Brian bends Pat’s knee and takes the plug out in a sudden slide, Pat choking on a sob until Brian replaces it with his cock.

He doesn’t last long. His — fuck, his knot goes down soon too, five minutes, maybe, of pinning Pat’s quaking body to the bed, and Pat’s still eager, needy — whines when Brian’s dick slips out. Brian struggles for the drawer, finds the dildo Pat had pointed out days ago, the one with the knot, and when he returns with it Pat grabs Brian’s wrist. “It smells — it smells like shitty silicone, it doesn’t, fuck, Brian, no, no, please —”

But Brian kisses him until he’s lying out again, until his eyes are fluttering closed, and Brian smears the dildo with the mess of the slick and come streaking his thighs and raises it to Pat’s mouth, lets him smell it. Lets him — God, taste it, when Pat’s mouth falls open, feeds it to him until Pat’s trembling for something to fill him. But Pat whines when he moves the dildo, draws it away to give him what he needs, pleading _you, you_ , and Brian lets him lick at the dildo again and — fuck, plunges his fingers into Pat’s hole.

Pat shudders around him, nods, _mewls_ , suckles at the tip of the dildo with hooded eyes and moans, “More, Brian, more, please,” and that’s. That’s how Brian ends up resting his forehead against Pat’s hip, focused on the glorious gape of Pat’s hole around his knuckles, then his whole fucking hand, until it closes around his wrist, Pat taking him so good, and Brian curls his fingers into a fist, knots Pat with his hand while Pat comes wet and staggered, his eyes glazed open and searching, spitroasted, licking up Brian’s come and his taste from the toy.

==

    Pat bundles up in blankets on the couch, like he has the actual flu, and Brian makes sure he eats the chicken soup while they watch JoJo’s. _It’s what I’m capable of mentally right now_ , Pat had said, and Brian had suggested Riverdale just to rile him.

    Midway through a Dio speech Pat’s head slumps against a pillow, and Brian watches as he fades — and then blinks rapidly, sitting back up.

    Brian moves his water closer to him, on the coffee table. “You good?”

    Pat doesn’t answer immediately. He licks his lips and breathes in audibly, then out again. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m good. I’m… yeah.”

    “You wanna play Smash? Maybe it’ll be more engaging.”

    Pat nods and unfolds himself from his mini-fort.

==

Pat hums around Brian’s fingers, his tongue working around each, tasting, his own hands exploring Brian’s chest, slow and curious. When he slows Brian pulls his hand away, starts to get up — Pat needs water, probably, and they could both use a good wipe down — and Pat hooks his arm around Brian’s neck and pulls him back. Kisses him slow and searching, and fuck, Brian can taste the both of them in Pat’s mouth.

“Think I’m coming out of it,” Pat says dreamily against his lips, then, “Alpha,” like he’s forgotten Brian’s name, and something — something hot spirals out from Brian’s gut, twists through his entire body, makes him feel, fuck, feral.

“Baby,” Brian growls, “fuck, look at you, my sweet little omega,” and Pat lets out an indulgent sigh, dropping his arms on either side of the bed and stretching up, _preening_ , and Brian grabs at him and guides him, heat sloppy, onto his belly, and he fucks into him in an easy slide, grunts as soon as he’s hip to hip, and Pat reaches back and twists Brian’s hair in his fingers.

“Alpha,” he moans, “alpha,” and brian feels some deep part inside of him, at the very core of his bones, catch on fire.

==

    “Hey,” Brian says after Pat’s kobe’d him off the edge of Moray Towers. It’s offensive that Pat’s winning even while glassy-eyed, but Brian’s pushing through the embarrassment.

    “Is for horses,” Pat responds, a look of hazy concentration on his face as he forms the word, like when you’ve just sat down for your 8am final after pulling an all-nighter.

    Brian huffs, “Classic,” and bumps their shoulders together, and Pat follows him when he shifts back. Sits next to him, shoulder to shoulder, their bodies pressed together. “You doing okay?”

    Pat nods, breathing through his mouth. “Beat your ass, didn’t I.” And Brian laughs, and Pat grins, firecracker quick, and teases, “You love it.”

    And Brian does, he does, and he elbows Pat in the side and says, dopily, the warm rich smell of Pat filling his nose and heavy on his tongue,

==

Pat’s fingers card through Brian’s hair, Brian’s cheek against his sternum. “So we’ve all discovered a little something about ourselves, huh,” Pat says, with an affected air of detached calm, and Brian laughs and turns his face to Pat’s chest, breathing out against his skin.

“You sound relatively grounded,” Brian says, and Pat hums, still a little dreamy.

“I feel fucked out,” he replies, which draws a laugh out of both of them. And then he says, “Thanks,” and when Brian glances up, he’s grimacing. “Not uh. That sounds transactional. Not like that.”

“I get it.” Brian kisses the underside of his jaw, Pat’s stubble tickling his lips.

“Yeah?”

“Mm, yeah.” Brian trails kisses down his neck. The stretch of his collarbones. Each nipple, to hear Pat’s huffed laugh. “Thanks for sharing it with me,” he says, and he does him damnedest to sound _worshipful_ , and when he looks, Pat’s gazing down at him with a gentle fondness on his face, cracked open and guilleless, and it’s Brian’s entire fucking world when he tugs at Brian’s hair and says,

“I love you.”


End file.
